Wallis Bird

★★★ Hands MOUNT SILVER. CD/DL/LP

Seventh outing from Berlinbased Irish folk-rocker.

Bird likes to reinvent herself, but Hands is more than experimentalism, this time chronicling a period of selfacceptance. There’s less grungy Ani DiFranco angst and suddenly – in deliriously soulful opener Go – consolidation and anticipation, like a shimmering Ashley Maher. “I’ll never move on if I don’t go now/Because everything lies in the distance.” The syncopated beats of What’s Wrong With Changing might be Janet Jackson circa Rhythm Nation and, continuing the ’80s/90s flavour, No Pants Dance has funk, samples and cosmic growls à la Prince. Trumpet and Spanish guitar make The Dive gently moving (“Look at you there, sun on your wet skin, walking toward my open arms”). From the drinking she’s stopped to the childhood loss of a finger, she’s finding resolution; and if the album seems to end in mid-air, it’s possible this is an ongoing process.

Glyn Brown